News

Dubai, 8 April 2020. Several governments around the world have imposed shutdowns of non-essential businesses as part of the measures to contain the COVID-19 outbreak. In some countries, this includes manufacturers, suppliers and service professionals of HVACR equipment. Eurovent Middle East, along with other international industry organisations have published a Position Paper to warn of severe consequences to critical infrastructure if the supply and servicing of HVACR equipment is halted.

Dubai, 07 April 2020. The COVID-19 situation not only forces businesses and events to resort to online alternatives for meetings, it also has led to an acceleration of digitalisation and an increased demand for data centres to cope with an unprecedented surge in communication and data processing infrastructure. The safe operation of such infrastructure depends heavily on reliable and energy efficient cooling. In this live webinar, Eurovent Middle East will provide an overview of systems and technologies available to achieve safe and sustainable operations.

Eurovent Middle East, as the region´s industry association for Heating, Ventilation, Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration (HVACR) equipment manufacturers, is calling on healthcare facilities, building owners, operators and facility management providers to carefully observe the following recommendations by the industry to reduce the risks related to the spread of airborne viruses through ventilation and air-conditioning systems and support the government in its efforts to contain the outbreak.

Eurovent Middle East, as the region´s industry association for Heating, Ventilation, Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration (HVACR) equipment manufacturers, is encouraging healthcare facilities to carefully observe the following recommendations by the industry to reduce the risks related to the spread of airborne viruses through air filtration and ventilation systems and properly instruct all personnel involved in the specification, purchase, installation, operation and maintenance of such systems.

With sustainability, energy efficiency and flexibility forming the basis of modern HVACR solutions, Eurovent Middle East has announced the next three events under its ‘HVACR Leadership Workshop’ banner, namely Building Retrofits, Reducing the Energy Bill: Cold Chain and Data Centre Cooling, taking place in Dubai and Abu Dhabi in the coming months.

Industry Networks (BNC) has joined Eurovent Middle East as an Associate Member and contributed to the Annual Meeting by providing an overview of the market development in 2019, summarising trends and giving an outlook for 2020 based on the collected data on building projects throughout the GCC. While urban and transport sectors in the UAE saw a decline in project volumes year on year, mostly due to finalisation of many EXPO 2020 projects, healthy figures in the industrial and Oil & Gas segments balanced the overall results. Figures for KSA show a strong increase of 13% overall and in the urban construction segment, putting KSA in the lead in terms of projects around the region.

In this technical paper, Mr Tobias Zimmer, VP – Product Management and International Standards at Camfil shares some insight on Comfort IAQ. Many factors are rather well known for their ability to create a good indoor air climate, but when it comes to airborne particles, there is no great deal of documentation to consult and set requirements. Nor are there much of other specific guidelines. The new, product-neutral and free online calculation tool “Comfort IAQ” helps to understand the mechanisms behind IAQ and gives a good indication on what would be the impact on indoor air quality (IAQ) due to air exchange, outdoor air environment, air filter selection and building envelope characteristics

Eurovent Middle East provided an overview of the ongoing regulatory developments during its Annual Meeting 2020. This summary included the latest information on the following important regulations:

• ADQCC FCU and AHU Conformity Assessment Schemes
• ESMA UAE.S 5010-1, UAE.S 5010-5 2019 revision with the introduction of the ISO CSPF seasonal efficiency standard
• GSO G-Mark Scope Exemptions - Oman Energy Efficiency Labelling Regulation (GSO 2530:2016)
• SASO Biodegradable Plastics Regulation – Phase 2 & 3
• Qatar Energy Efficiency Regulation (QS 2663:2019)

The development of Eurovent Middle East and the growth of its membership numbers over the past three years enabled the association to lower its fee structure, supporting its members in light of the tightened economic environment. The new structure sees a fee reduction from a range of 7.000 to 13.000 EUR to a range of 5.000 to 9.000 EUR. The fees for associate and corresponding members are not affected.

During the Annual Meeting on 9 February, members of the association for the region’s leading HVACR manufacturers elected Mr Brian Suggitt, Managing Director, Systemair UAE, as President supported by Mr Tariq Al Ghussein, CEO of local company Taqeef as Vice-President. Thanks to continuous growth in previous years, the member gathering saw the approval of lower membership fee structures for its members, which ensures the longevity of the Association for the years ahead.